Tag Archives: religion

Everybody’s favourite hypocrite, Ted Haggard, has relaunched himself onto the public stage. Haggard, who was disgraced back in 2006 by a sex and drugs scandal, held a prayer meeting at his home in Colorado Springs on Thursday Evening.

At his height, Ted Haggard was an immensely powerful evangelist who claimed to have the ear of then-President Bush. However, everything for poor Ted came crashing down when it turned out he’d been seeing and taking drugs with a gay prostitute. Given that this was against everything he’d ever preached, we all found it hilarious (and ironically the closest thing to evidence I’ve ever seen for the existence of a god).

And now he is back! Using the prayer meeting as a possible launch pad for a new church he met with press outside his home.

“For the people who come tonight, that means they believe in the resurrection in me,” he said. “Because I died. I was buried.”

Is this a new beginning for Ted Haggard? I hope so, because with him representing Christians more people will be turned off religion entirely.

To see Haggard (pre-disgrace) check out Richard Dawkins’ documentary, “The Root Of All Evil” in which he interviews Haggard about evolution. If the man does not give you nightmares, you’re a stronger person than I.

A change in government policy means that parents can now only prevent their children from receiving sex education up to the age of fifteen. Previously it was nineteen. Yes, that’s right. Under previous rules a young person could be legally old enough to fornicate, yet their parents could prevent them being told what a condom was.

Despite this welcome change of policy, the current rules are still madness. Sex education is vital education, and a parent has no right to prevent their child receiving it. A child does not chose the family it is born into. It does not decide ‘I would like to be brought up as a conservative catholic’ any more than ‘I would like to be a godless liberal’. It is up to our schools to save the child from the failings of their parents. There should be no opt out for sex education, just as a parent should not be able to opt their child out of being taught evolution.

Denying a child vital information to allow them to operate in a modern society is abuse. It’s that simple. Just because the parent is a sexually repressed moron, doesn’t mean their offspring have to suffer the same fate.

The arrival of Geert Wilders to the UK is not just a victory for free speech, but also a victory for the possibility of change. Geert Wilders, for those who are not familiar with this story, is the Dutch MP who was refused entry to the UK in February on the grounds he supposedly incites religious hatred. These accusations are levelled at him because of his views on the Koran.

To quote the BBC:

‘Mr Wilders said he was not setting out to insult Muslims – the majority of whom were “law-abiding” – but he defended his right to criticise the actions of a minority who he said posed a threat to society.
“My aim is not to insult anyone but it is to defend freedom,” he said.’

Why is it, that even this man, is afraid to stand up and say, “the Koran – what a load of nonsense!”? It seems that everyone is falling over themselves to keep this “law-abiding community” happy. Surely if they are all law-abiding, he wouldn’t need to be so careful? The truth is he’s trying to stop himself being crushed under the weight of so many outraged religious nutbags, all demanding his head on a stick.

I don’t know where Mr. Wilders is coming from in his anger towards certain sections of Islam, and quite frankly, I don’t care. It’s about time people stopped apologising for their criticisms and went for the real problem: religion itself. Because it does not matter how extreme a person’s faith is, it’s still maintaining something is true without a shred of evidence, and such thoughts are corrupting.

Banning someone from your country simply because their views are currently unpopular is dangerous because it stifles the possibility for change. Sure, his views are not widely acceptable now, but in the future they could be considered the norm. When you clamp down on debate you are refusing your society to evolve, and something that doesn’t evolve will fail. I happen to believe that recreational drugs should be legal; should I be deported lest I corrupt the youth into a life of sin? Of course not, and one day my views will be the norm and everyone will wonder how it could ever have been otherwise. I also like to think, in the future, religion will be considered as foolish and illogical as homophobia or racism and thus these debates ridiculous.

As a lover of freedom, I think people should be able to practice any religion they please, however I also feel they should be told by a Dutchman that they’re an idiot.